Long, overproduced superhero movies are, as regular readers are certainly aware, not my thing.  I am not the intended audience.  Nevertheless, I buy my ticket, I get to have my say about it.  And what do you know, I was actually entertained by this film.  I don’t like its plot, and I hate the entire concept of the multiverse, but done well a decent movie can be made about any subject.  The funny thing is that this movie absolutely supports my rejection of the multiverse; anything can happen and anything does.  Even a Nicolas Cage version of Superman.  I rest my case.

Andy Muschietti’s film follows a young Justice League hero, Barry Allen (Ezra Miller), better known as The Flash, as he cleans up Batman’s messes around Gotham City and grieves the death of his mother and incarceration of his father (for her death).  Barry is so distraught that he runs faster than light and learns how to turn back time.  Despite warnings from the Caped Crusader Barry makes one tiny little change in the past that should save his mother, but that leads to more time catastrophe than I can describe, plus the arrival of General Zod (Michael Shannon), keen to terraform Earth to create a new, improved Krypton.  Mayhem ensues.

No movie will, I suspect, ever create a more convincing argument against the multiverse concept than this one.  No matter how many million attempts are made to repair the past once a change is made, it can never match what has gone before.  And the desire to change the past is destined to be ruinous to the present.  Never should it be attempted.  If there are other parallel or intersecting universes out there, just let them be.  Our own sphere of reality ought to be enough, and it is this hard lesson that Barry Allen needs to learn before he can finally have peace.

Now, having had my say about the meaningless of the multiverse — nothing can have meaning if anything is possible — I will admit that this movie is pretty entertaining in its own way.  The slow motion stuff is pretty cool, there is plenty of humor (a baby shower!) and it is a lot of fun to see various Batmen and Supermen among the multitude of characters that Barry meets along his circuitous journey.  The new Superman is a nice change.  But there are still too many battles and fight scenes and things that don’t hold up under any sort of scrutiny.  Still, I was impressed with Ezra Miller and the film’s sensibilities, even if I still hate the idea of the multiverse.  ☆ ☆ 1/2.  9 July 2023.